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Populism and Informal Fallacies: An Analysis of Right-Wing Populist Rhetoric in Election Campaigns

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Abstract

Populism is on the rise, especially in Western Europe. While it is often assumed that populist actors have a tendency for fallacious reasoning, this has not been systematically investigated. We analyze the use of informal fallacies by right-wing populist politicians and their representation in the media during election campaigns. We conduct a quantitative content analysis of press releases of right-wing populist parties and news articles in print media during the most recent elections in the United Kingdom and Switzerland in 2015. The results show that fallacies are used in more than a third of all analyzed texts and overwhelmingly co-occur with populist key messages. Moreover, fallacies occur more often in populist parties’ press releases than in news articles and are more common in Switzerland compared to the United Kingdom. This study confirms the argument that populist actors use fallacies in combination with populist claims.

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Notes

  1. “Populist” means that these parties are regularly labeled as populist in the media and the scientific literature. According to our conceptualization, this does not say anything yet about how populist their communication actually is, which is an empirical question.

  2. Federal Council (June 9, 2017): Religious signs and buildings worn and attached to building. Report of the Federal Council in fulfillment of the postulate 13.3672, Aeschi, 10.09.2013 [Getragene und an Bauten angebrachte religiöse Zeichen und Symbole. Bericht des Bundesrates in Erfüllung des Postulates 13.3672, Aeschi, 10.09.2013]. www.ager.unibe.ch/Bericht des Bundesrates Postulat Aeschi.pdf.

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Acknowledgments

We want to thank Tobias Good and Anna Hadorn for their valuable contribution as coders as well as in the development of the codebook.

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Blassnig, S., Büchel, F., Ernst, N. et al. Populism and Informal Fallacies: An Analysis of Right-Wing Populist Rhetoric in Election Campaigns. Argumentation 33, 107–136 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-018-9461-2

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